Guillermo Abadía Morales

Guillermo Abadía Morales died of natural causes on 21 January 2010 at the age of 97.

Abadía Morales was the author of over twenty-five books on linguistics, folklore, and identity. His best known work, Compendio General de Folclor (General Folklore Compendium) has sold more than 40,000 copies since it was first published in 1970. Compendio is now widely used as a social science textbook in Colombia. He also created a series of educational broadcast focusing on folklore, which have been broadcast on Radiodifusora Nacional de Colombia.

In 1934, Abadía Morales began living with seventeen separate indigenous Colombian tribes for ten years. Each of the tribes he observed represented a different language family within the country. Abadía Morales was able to classify the languages of 105 indigenous peoples into nine language families. He developed the "Abadia Classification" system to group the families by geographic distribution within Colombia.

From 1934 to 1944 Abadía spent 10 years studying the language systems of indigenous Colombian populations. As a result of this work, he managed to classify 105 indigenous populations into nine language families. This system became known as the "Abadia Classification".

Guillermo Abadía Morales (8 May 1912 – 21 January 2010) was a Colombian linguist, academic, anthropologist, folklore researcher and indigenous language expert. Abadía Morales was one of the first to champion the study of indigenous languages in Colombia.

Abadía was born in Santa Fe de Bogota in 1912. In 1914, his Family moved to the neighboring town of Sopo, Colombia, only to return to Bogota in 1919. He completed his high school education at la Escuela Ricaurte. After which he enrolled at the National University in Bogota where he spent five years studying medicine and pharmacy. During this period, he participated in an educational vaccination program in the jungles of the Choco region. It is here that he began to familiarize himself with the traditional cultures of Colombia.